


Candles

by NarryMusings



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Christmas Shopping, M/M, Pining, candle talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 15:24:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8850193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarryMusings/pseuds/NarryMusings
Summary: Niall likes candles. But he might like the boy who who sells them even more.





	

It’s apple cinnamon, the first time Niall sees _him_ is through the window of the shop on December 1st. He gets a whiff of it when the door opens.

_He_ has long, flowing locks, and broad shoulders, and legs that seem to go on days.

He thinks about going inside, thinks about greeting _him_ , thinks about welcoming _him_ to Mullingar. (Thinks about flirting with _him_ , thinks about giving _him_ subtle hints, thinks about writing his phone number on a piece of paper and handing it over as he pays for a [stupidly expensive] candle.

The only thing is, he’s too chicken shit to follow through with it.

X

The third time he sees him, it’s warm vanilla sugar cookie – and he finds out _his_ name is Harry, via the nametag pinned to his obnoxiously patterned shirt.

The shop is brand new, having only just opened two weeks ago, run by a mother-son duo, although Niall has yet to see Harry’s mother. Not that he’s, like, looking or anything – it’s just that, well, Mullingar is a small town, and Niall never forgets a face. (He especially could never forget Harry’s.)

The second time he’d seen Harry had been a right off, just like the first time. He’d more or less psyched himself out, and ended up leaving before he could force himself to open the door.

This third time, however, is the time Niall finally makes it inside – and he’s greeted immediately, both by the smell of the candle burning at the desk next to the cash register, and by Harry.

“Hiiii!”

Niall’s heart jumps into his throat as he looks up, and his mouth runs dry when he realizes that Harry is looking right at him. “Hi,” he murmurs.

“You finally decided to come inside,” Harry hums, in a distinctively British accent that nearly knocks Niall off balance.

And- Oh.

Harry smiles softly, cards one ring-riddled hand through his hair. “I saw you outside a couple of times, like you couldn’t decide if you wanted to come in or not. If I hadn’t been held up at the cash register, I would have probably tried to coax you inside.”

Niall blinks, feels the heat climbing up his neck. Thank goodness for the scarf wrapped around his neck.

“Feel free to have a look around,” Harry tells him. “Everything is buy one, get one half off. I’ll be behind the counter if you need me.”

And, fuck- Niall kind of wants to need him all the time.

“Um- What’s the candle that’s burning right now?” Niall asks curiously.

Harry smiles. “Warm Vanilla Sugar Cookie,” he replies softly. “I burn a new candle every other day. It’s delicious, right?”

Niall hums, but can’t bring himself to say anything he else. Instead, he grabs a warm vanilla sugar cookie candle off of one shelf, and then a cinnamon apple one off of another before he takes them both to the desk.

“Two very good choices,” Harry smirks – like he knows.

“It’s lovely in here,” he finds himself saying a moment later. He’s just trying to distract himself from the butterflies in his stomach, but he’s not exaggerating either. It’s dimly lit and homey, and the furniture is all rustic and beautiful. _The Rolling Stones_ are playing softly through a speaker in behind the desk.

“Mum picked out most of the décor, she loves that kind of thing. It was my idea to always have a candle burning though. They smell great, and sometimes it gets customers to buy more than they came in for.”

Niall smirks. “That sounds a bit manipulative, mate.”

Harry shrugs. “Less manipulative, more suggestive, I say.” He hands Niall his receipt with a wink – and Niall just about swallows his tongue. “Have a great day, love.”

“Y-eah,” Niall stutters, taken aback. “You too.”

And then he leaves quickly, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

X

The sixth time he sees Harry, it’s all winter cherry. Niall enters the store on the guise that he’s looking for a candle for his sister-in-law. The first thing he notices is that Harry’s hair has been pulled back into a messy bun and, well, Niall never thought that a manbun would do it for him, but it does somehow.

“You’re back,” Harry says, smiling softly, as Niall unwinds the scarf from around his neck. “Who’s it for?”

“My sister-in-law,” Niall says. The last candle he got was for his grandmother. The one before that was for his mother. “She really likes the smell of pine.”

“Well, I happen to have the perfect candle for you,” the brunet says, leading Niall towards the back of the store, despite the fact that Niall could probably manage by himself, given how often he’s been here in the last few days.

Niall follows him, can’t help but watch the slight way that Harry’s arse sways back and forth in those skintight jeans he’s wearing.

“It’s actually the one I have picked out for tomorrow,” Harry tells him. He grabs a minty coloured green candle off the shelf, and then presents it in front of Niall for him to smell. “Frosted pine. It’s not too, like, pine-y or strong either. It’s actually quite-“

“Perfect,” Niall says. He takes the candle in his own hands. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

Harry rings him up slowly, and Niall finds himself wishing that he could think of something more to say. He wishes he could think of something interesting, something that would engage Harry in conversation – something he could use to get to know a little bit more about him.

“So- Have you lived here your whole life?”

Niall blinks, looks at him properly. Harry has Niall’s candle placed into a bag, with his arms folded across the counter behind it; he’s looking at Niall curiously. “Me? Yeah, I’ve lived here my whole life.”

“I haven’t.”

Niall snorts, surprising even himself. “No shit, English.”

Harry smirks.

“Where did you grow up?” Niall asks, then. It’s not very interesting, per se, but Harry started it.

“Holmes Chapel,” Harry smiles.

“Do you miss it?”

“Sometimes. But it’s beautiful here, so I don’t miss it all the time.”

“Why did you come here?”

“Mum’s been desperate to open her own shop for ages now, and she wanted to do it in a small town. She wanted to start from scratch, you know? She also just- Sort of needed to get out of there. So when a friend of hers suggested coming out here because there was a space available, I didn’t hesitate to encourage her to make the move. So my sister and I packed up our stuff, and moved out here with her.”

“Wow,” Niall whispers, smiling fondly. “That’s really good of you to do for her.”

A ring of the bell above the door interrupts them, as a gust of cold air rushes in along with another customer.

“Duty calls,” Harry murmurs.

Niall nods, gathers his bag from off of the counter. “Yeah, of course. I should get going anyway.”

Harry smiles softly as he comes around the end of the desk. “It was nice seeing you-“ He pauses, like he’s trying to think of Niall’s name – except that he doesn’t even know what it is.

So Niall tells him, because he finally has an excuse to.

“It was nice seeing you, Niall. Hopefully I’ll see you around again soon.”

And, yeah, Niall would like that too.

X

“You know,” Harry says, whilst he rings through Niall’s purchase. (The tenth time Niall sees Harry, it’s peppermint hot chocolate.) “If you made a list and then bought all of the candles at the same time, it would save you all of these extra trips.”

“That would require me to have my life together, mate.”

Harry shrugs. “You look pretty put together to me.”

“Looking put together is one thing,” Niall says, leaning forward to fold both arms across the counter. “Knowing what the hell I’m doing is something else entirely.”

The brunet hums, as he hands Niall his receipt. “I feel you there, actually,” he replies, turning his whole body to face Niall and propping one hip against the desk. “Like- I love working with my mum, and I like helping her out, and I really like candles, but- Sometimes I want to do other things.”

Niall arches a curious eyebrow. “Like what?”

“Like- Travel. And write poetry. And be a photographer. And sing, even though I’m not sure that I can-“

“You can,” Niall tells him. “I’ve heard you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, mate. I mean, not fully, but I’ve heard you singing along to _The Eagles_ – my favourite band, by the way. And you’re really good.”

Harry shrugs. “Well, what about you? Why don’t you feel like you have your life together?”

_Right this minute? Because I really want to kiss you and, at the age of 21, I can’t even figure out how to go about doing that,_ he thinks. But he can’t tell Harry that.

He’s saved by the literal bell a few seconds later because-

“Duty calls, Niall. I hope you see you around some more.”

Niall wonders, as he leaves, if the butterflies in his stomach are ever going to go away.

X

The first thing Niall is made aware of when he enters the shop is the beautiful woman behind the desk. The second thing is that she looks like Harry. (The third thing is the candle burning in front of her; fireside.)

“There he is!” Harry exclaims – and only then does he see the brunet coming through a door he knows leads into the back room. He’s carrying a box, which he sets on the desk in front of [whom Niall assumes is] his mother, before coming around to greet Niall. He hugs Niall, and them drags him forward. “Mum, I’d like you to meet Niall.”

And- Oh. He’s meeting the family already then, is he? A lump grows in his throat as Harry’s mum comes around the desk to stand in front of it. She smiles warmly – and Niall can’t help but notice the dimple in her cheek, identical to Harry’s.

“He’s our most valued customer, mum.”

“He is, is he?”

Niall shrugs. “I love your candles.” _And I might really like your son too,_ goes unsaid.

“Well, thank you, love,” she says softly. “I hope you enjoy them.”

“He’s bought one for just about every member of his family at this point.”

“All of their houses could smell better,” Niall jokes.

Harry snorts. “Who is it for this time?”

“It’s for a friend, actually. Her name is Laura.”

Harry blinks, like he’s taken aback. “Oh.” Something like curiosity flashes across his face, but disappointment flashes in his eyes. “Well, what does she like?”

And, Niall isn’t entirely sure why, but he gets the vibe that Harry isn’t as enthusiastic this time around as he helps Niall pick out a candle.

X

“ _Last minute_ gift shopping on Christmas Eve, huh?” Harry asks, from where he’s perched on top of the desk next to the cash register. There’s a brown, leather bound book in his hands, which he places on the counter before he hops down. He smiles as he shoves his hands into his pockets. “Who’s it for, and what do they like?”

“Actually, it’s for me,” Niall says. The butterflies are alive in his stomach, fluttering around so furiously that he feels sick with it. “I’m not picky, as far as candles go.”

“Oh, well- Good, because-“

“But I really like boys with long legs and broad shoulders and curly hair,” Niall rushes out. He’s been afraid that if he didn’t just get it out, that he’d never get it out.”

Harry blinks in response. “What? But I thought- I thought you liked Laura?”

Niall’s brow furrows in confusion. “Why would you think that I liked _Laura_?”

“She’s the only ‘friend’ you bought something for.”

Niall smirks, rolls his eyes fondly. “I’d actually finished my Christmas shopping ages ago. I just wanted excuses to come see you – and I’d run out of family members.”

“E-Excuses?” Harry asks. He sounds like he’s as out of breath as Niall feels.

“Because I like boys with long legs and broad shoulders and curly hair – and dimples in his cheek, specifically.”

Harry grins, blush spreading all across his cheeks. “I can definitely help you there, then. My shift is over in an hour.”


End file.
